Citi brings voice biometrics authentication to the Philippines

Banking customers will be allowed to use their voices as means for authenticating their phone banking transactions.

Filipino customers of Citi can now enroll in its voice biometrics system, allowing them to use their voices as means for authenticating their phone banking transactions.

Citi said the voice biometrics authentication is capable of identifying the customers through their voice print which is unique to each person like a fingerprint.

Customers can enroll by recording their voices, which will be used by the bank to generate and store their voice prints for matching subsequent calls to Citi. The voice print will be uniquely tagged to avoid reverse engineering once it is stored.

Compared to average 45 seconds, Citi said using this technology allows their contact centres to identify and verify the customers within 15 seconds or less, as they explain their reason for calling.

"With this new capability, we offer our customers a faster and more secure authentication for a better customer experience," said Anand Selva, Asia Pacific Head for Consumer Banking of Citi, in a press release.

Besides Philippines, Citi has already rolled out its voice biometrics authentication in Australia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. The bank plans to implement the technology throughout the region in 2016 and 2017 to cover all of its 12 consumer banking markets in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region.